Book Promotion Pitfalls Writers Should Avoid ∣ Self-Publishing Relief

When you self-publish your book, you have complete control over the entire process: your cover design, the final title, the book’s price, and promotion. At Self-Publishing Relief, we know most writers are unfamiliar with the details of effective marketing and promotion. But if you want to boost your book sales, you need to employ some marketing strategies. The trick is knowing which ideas will succeed and which marketing ploys will fall flat. Here are the book promotion pitfalls writers should avoid.

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5 Book Promotion Pitfalls And Mistakes To Avoid

Not knowing your audience.?There are a LOT of authors out there promoting their books, so before you even begin planning your promotion, you must identify your?ideal reader. It’s important to target your promotion to a specific audience. You want quality over quantity—simply trying to reach a large audience (that may or may not be interested in your book) is a waste of time and money. The more genuine and accurate your interactions with your prospective buyers, the more likely they are to be interested in buying your book.

Relying on technology over personal engagement.?Scheduling tools can certainly be helpful in managing an active social media calendar, but you don’t want to completely automate your interactions with your readers and fans (even if you’re a shy introvert!). Don’t schedule a week’s worth of promotional tweets and posts and then walk away. Potential readers will see this as sales spam and will quickly stop paying attention. Instead, be sure you’re actually checking in and responding to anyone who engages with you on your social media platforms.

Starting too late.?You should have your promotional foundation in place before your book is published. Build your author website,?create a presence on social media platforms, and start planning ways to market your self-published book. Once your book is published, you’ll have a built-in audience ready and waiting to hit the “buy now” button!

Overspending on marketing.?While there are many cost-free ways to promote your book, you will probably spend some money on marketing. For example, building and maintaining an author website isn’t free, but it’s an important online presence that will make it easier for book buyers to learn more about you and your writing. But you don’t have to break the bank to get a great website design:?Web Design Relief?specializes in building budget-friendly websites for writers.

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You may choose to?run ads on social media, but again, don’t spend money reaching people who won’t be interested in your book. Use the platform’s tools to target your advertising. If you’ve written a romance, you’ll want to consider clubs and groups where romance readers congregate. You’ll also want to consider your demographic in terms of age and maybe even location.

Think outside the box and utilize?fun and free?(or low-cost) ideas to promote your book. The more creative you are with your promotions, the more interested new readers will be, since you’ll stand out from the crowd of other sellers hawking their books.

Choosing a poor book cover design.?We know, we know. You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover. For most things in life, that’s good advice—but when it comes to books, that’s exactly what readers judge them by! Your book cover is your ultimate point-of-purchase sales tool and offers the best opportunity to sell your book to a potential buyer. Be sure your book cover is engaging, memorable, and appropriate for the genre. If you need ideas, check out our portfolio of great?book cover designs.

By avoiding these common book promotion pitfalls, you’ll improve your odds of boosting your self-published book sales with your marketing efforts—and be on the road to success!